Metro News & Reviews

Transportation headlines, Monday, May 10

Here’s a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog. Don’t forget you can also follow the Metro Library on Facebook and Twitter.

While New York City is getting a lot of attention these days for transforming some major Manhattan streets into pedestrian thoroughfares, the practice is nothing new in the U.S. During the post-war years, in an attempt to compete with the growing popularity of suburbia, hundreds of cities across the nation created pedestrian malls in their downtown districts, hoping to siphon shoppers from the suburban malls. Unfortunately it seems, save for a few cities such as Denver and Charlottesville, pedestrian malls failed to bring life to downtown districts and cities have been letting the cars back in.

Confused by the politics that go into building a rail line in Los Angeles? Bill Boyarsky at LA Observed tries to explain the rather complex collection of public agencies working to make the Expo Line a go – and deciding whether or not contested street level crossings will be approved.

Joel Epstein, HuffPo’s resident L.A. transit advocate, pens an open letter to Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein – imploring the shamed CEO to use his investment banking knowledge to help L.A. seal the 30/10 deal with the feds. If Goldman Sachs isn’t interested, Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa will be going back to Washington this week to lobby for 30/10 and other Metro officials have also been working on the effort.